By Lancelot Joseph. Executive Editor, Business India

Tuberculosis (TB) in India is a major health problem accounting for 26 per cent of the entire world’s TB patients. More than 1,300 people die every day from TB in our country, even though TB is a curable disease and treatment is available free of cost for all citizens. To revamp the efforts to fight against TB, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has launched a youth focused awareness campaign – Be the Change for TB – on this World TB Day (24 March, 2022).

This campaign is under the Corporate TB Pledge – a joint initiative between Central TB Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to galvanise corporate support for the elimination of tuberculosis by 2025.

“The primary objective of the campaign is to create a cadre of Youth Changemakers (CMs), who can help enhance awareness, improve health seeking behaviour in communities and help in finding missing TB patients. To enable this, Actor Vaani Kapoor will be the face of the campaign along with rap music artist Kaam Bhaari; they have joined the campaign to motivate the youth of the country and inspire them to join the fight against TB.

As part of the association, an exciting rap video song by Kaam Bhaari has also been shot featuring Vaani Kapoor. The song will be launched along with the campaign,” explains Sarthak Ranade, MD, Janssen India who oversees the company’s operations in India and the South Asian markets of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh & Nepal. Ranade is a member of the J&J India President Council, as well as the Janssen Asia Pacific Leadership Team. 

“As part of a comprehensive effort, in 2018, we launched a 10-year TB initiative aimed at driving progress towards the global target of ending the TB epidemic by 2030. India is, and will continue to be, one of the primary beneficiaries of these efforts,” adds Ranade who has initiated a programme around three key pillars.

“We have taken and continue to take proactive steps to support the Indian government’s work to accelerate sustainable patient access to bedaquiline, the first new TB treatment to be made available in India in almost 50 years. In addition to expanding access to treatment, we are working with local governments, NGOs and partners to support global efforts to help find the ‘missing millions’ of undiagnosed cases of TB, including by training health workers on the clinical management of TB and DR-TB and raising awareness about TB at the community level. Further, we are accelerating the discovery and development of next generation TB treatments that will be urgently needed if we are to achieve the global target of ending the TB pandemic by 2030.”

Additionally, the MTV Staying Alive Foundation will be expanding on the success of MTV Nishedh, a youth-focused ‘edutainment’ campaign in India, which was supported through an educational grant from us (J&J). Nivi’s askNivi chatbot will be deployed, providing young people in India with information on TB, such as the signs and symptoms of the disease, facts to debunk common myths and individualised recommendations to seek geo-referenced care for those affected by TB.